Detection and characterization of emerging psychoactive substances by ion mobility spectrometry.

Rapid detection and identification of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) continues to present significant analytical challenges to forensic and analytical chemists. Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has been traditionally considered as the analytical technique of choice to detect illicit drugs in security points in airports, borderlines and customs. Databases of the reduced mobility (K0 ) values of illicit drugs are available in the scientific literature and they should be completed with data of emerging designer drugs. In this paper, we have evaluated the effect of different measurement conditions and determined the K0 values of an important number of NPS including different families; such as phenethylamines, cathinones, synthetic cannabinoids and tryptamines among others to be incorporated to the existing data to provide a rapid detection and identification of this emerging threat.

A green method for the determination of cocaine in illicit samples.

Direct determination of cocaine in untreated seized samples has been made based on diffuse reflectance measurements of the near infrared (NIR) radiation through samples contained inside standard glass vials. The method used a series of previously analyzed samples, by the reference gas chromatography method, to build a partial least squares calibration model which was validated using an independent set of samples. The use of a general model for samples containing from 11.38% till 86.44% (w/w) cocaine was based on the use of spectral ranges from 12500.7 to 10128.6, 9339.8 to 6967.7 and 5388.3 to 4597.6cm(-1) with previous first derivative and vector normalization data pre-processing and provided a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 4.0% (w/w) with a residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 3.9% (w/w), based on the use of 8 latent variables, 34 samples for calibration and an independent set of 44 samples for validation. The aforementioned results could be improved on considering two separate models, one for high concentrated bulk samples and another for samples diluted with cutting agents. Additionally a new set of batch samples with cocaine concentrations from 60% till 84% was evaluated by using the developed method.

Ion mobility spectrometry evaluation of cocaine occupational exposure in forensic laboratories.

An approach, based on ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has been developed for the control of cocaine in air of the breathing zone of operators, in laboratory surfaces and in nasal mucus of employees to evaluate cocaine exposure in a forensic laboratory. The analytical methodology has been validated in terms of accuracy, precision and limits of detection and results obtained were statistically comparable with those obtained by liquid chromatography. Cocaine concentration in laboratory air increases from 100 ± 35 ng m(-3) of a normal day to 10,000 ng m(-3) during the manipulation of cocaine seizures. The occupational exposure limit (OEL) for cocaine has not been established which difficult the evaluation of the health effects of continuous exposition to very small doses of cocaine. Cocaine was also found in almost all the analyzed sample surfaces and also was found in nasal mucus of the police officers that were present during the manipulation of cocaine seizures without using a face mask. In summary, cocaine concentrations could present a health hazard to the employees and therefore warrants remediation and some modifications of the manipulation operations have been proposed.